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We’re Speeding Toward a Climate Change Catastrophe...and That Makes 2016 the Most Important Election
in a GenerationHow the U.S. confronts climate change will shape the world for generations; neither Clinton nor Trump seems to care.
By Phil Torres / Salon April 10, 2016
And multiple high-ranking U.S. officials have affirmed a causal connection between climate change and terrorism. For example, John Brennan, the current Director of the CIA, recently stated that “the impact of climate change” is one of the “deeper causes of this rising instability” in countries like Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Yemen and Libya. Similarly, Chuck Hagel, the former secretary of defense, describes climate change as a “threat multiplier” that “has the potential to exacerbate many of the challenges we are dealing with today — from infectious disease to terrorism.” And the Department of Defense notes in a 2015 report that “Global climate change will aggravate problems such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership and weak political institutions that threaten stability in a number of countries.”
Consider some recent data that underline the fact that climate change is a “clear and present danger.” As of this writing, the hottest month on record was last February. It completely “obliterated” the previous “all-time global temperature record” set by — take a guess — January 2016. And January 2016 beat the previous records set by October, November and December 2015. Similarly, the hottest 16 years on record have all occurred since 2000, with only a single exception (1998). The current record-holder is 2015, followed by 2014, 2010 and 2013, but it appears that 2016 could be even hotter than 2015.
This being said, climate change isn’t just a “present” danger with implications for human well-being this century. As a 2016 paper published in Nature points out, the fossil fuels that we’re burning right now could affect future generations for up to 10,000 years. We are, in other words, “imposing adverse changes on more humans than have ever existed.” To quote the study, co-authored by more than 20 scientists from around the world, at length: “The next few decades offer a brief window of opportunity to minimize large-scale and potentially catastrophic climate change that will extend longer than the entire history of human civilization thus far. Policy decisions made during this window are likely to result in changes to Earth’s climate system measured in millennia rather than human lifespans, with associated socioeconomic and ecological impacts that will exacerbate the risks and damages to society and ecosystems that are projected for the twenty-first century and propagate into the future for many thousands of years.”
Consider some recent data that underline the fact that climate change is a “clear and present danger.” As of this writing, the hottest month on record was last February. It completely “obliterated” the previous “all-time global temperature record” set by — take a guess — January 2016. And January 2016 beat the previous records set by October, November and December 2015. Similarly, the hottest 16 years on record have all occurred since 2000, with only a single exception (1998). The current record-holder is 2015, followed by 2014, 2010 and 2013, but it appears that 2016 could be even hotter than 2015.
This being said, climate change isn’t just a “present” danger with implications for human well-being this century. As a 2016 paper published in Nature points out, the fossil fuels that we’re burning right now could affect future generations for up to 10,000 years. We are, in other words, “imposing adverse changes on more humans than have ever existed.” To quote the study, co-authored by more than 20 scientists from around the world, at length: “The next few decades offer a brief window of opportunity to minimize large-scale and potentially catastrophic climate change that will extend longer than the entire history of human civilization thus far. Policy decisions made during this window are likely to result in changes to Earth’s climate system measured in millennia rather than human lifespans, with associated socioeconomic and ecological impacts that will exacerbate the risks and damages to society and ecosystems that are projected for the twenty-first century and propagate into the future for many thousands of years.”
If studies like this are to be believed — and they ought to be, given that they’re published in peer-reviewed journals and based on objective, checkable evidence — then it follows quite directly that the 2016 presidential election really could be the most important in a generation. Indeed, one could plausibly argue that this election will be the most important political event in the entire history of human civilization, given the U.S.’s standing as the leading superpower and the second biggest polluter in the world (by a long shot). How the U.S. handles the global, transgenerational problem of climate change will not only have a significant impact on what the world looks like by 2100, but it will shape the world for hundreds of human generations. It is, therefore, absolutely crucial that the next POTUS recognizes the multi-millennial scope of climate change and responds to this “severe” and “pervasive” threat with true wisdom and foresight.
Unfortunately, neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump — the two leading presidential candidates right now — inspire much confidence that climate change will be a priority for their administrations. As the activist Naomi Klein recently bemoaned, while Clinton was secretary of state, “she had a huge megaphone to make [climate change] an issue, to show that she understands the connections between human security and climate, [yet] she didn’t use the megaphone.” Because of this, Klein opines that Bernie Sanders would be “a significantly better candidate.” Indeed, not only has Sanders made climate change a central theme of his campaign, but he twice characterized it as the biggest national security threat facing the country, a claim that comports with the above-mentioned statements by Brennan, Hagel and the Department of Defense.
Unfortunately, neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump — the two leading presidential candidates right now — inspire much confidence that climate change will be a priority for their administrations. As the activist Naomi Klein recently bemoaned, while Clinton was secretary of state, “she had a huge megaphone to make [climate change] an issue, to show that she understands the connections between human security and climate, [yet] she didn’t use the megaphone.” Because of this, Klein opines that Bernie Sanders would be “a significantly better candidate.” Indeed, not only has Sanders made climate change a central theme of his campaign, but he twice characterized it as the biggest national security threat facing the country, a claim that comports with the above-mentioned statements by Brennan, Hagel and the Department of Defense.
..........These problems require exceptional wisdom and careful attention to the facts (as best we know them) to solve, yet the leading presidential candidates of the world’s superpower don’t appear to be aware of just how globally catastrophic climate change could be. This is a bad situation in which to find ourselves. It’s also a bad situation for potentially billions upon billions of future humans who could come to inhabit our planetary spaceship many thousands of years from now. Let’s hope future generations look back on this unique moment in human history with sighs of relief, rather than groans of resentment.
Full article: http://www.alternet.org/environment/were-speeding-toward-climate-change-catastropheand-makes-2016-most-important-election
(bbm)
Dear Clinton supporters - how exactly is she proposing to handle this, has she mentioned anything?
28 replies
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And the red deck chairs against the cabin under the portholes. That way the people in first class will drown first when the ship finishes sinking.
IMHO, it's too late to matter, except in the very short term. Long run, the human race is toast. (That includes Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Independents, whites, blacks, browns, yellows, blues, vegans, women's rights activists, organic farmers, hedge fund managers, the entire membership of PETA, Stephen Hawking, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, The Pope, the Dalai Lama, you, me, your kids, my kids, everybody's kids, grandkids, brothers and sisters. The whole, entire human race, and no, you will not be the sole survivor who gets to watch it all unfold.)
not a peep. 
I wish there was a begging smilie I could use to communicate the dire situation we're in.
Unfortunately Hillary supporters are still massively consumed with keeping the status quo.
Yet has no problem pushing for other nations, some of which drew protests by tens of thousands of people not wanting their environment destroyed.
https://vimeo.com/157982054
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017336883
As to the rest of the world:
How Hillary Clinton's State Department Sold Fracking to the World
A trove of secret documents details the US government's global push for shale gas.
—By Mariah Blake | September/October 2014 Issue
ONE ICY MORNING in February 2012, Hillary Clinton's plane touched down in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, which was just digging out from a fierce blizzard. Wrapped in a thick coat, the secretary of state descended the stairs to the snow-covered tarmac, where she and her aides piled into a motorcade bound for the presidential palace. That afternoon, they huddled with Bulgarian leaders, including Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, discussing everything from Syria's bloody civil war to their joint search for loose nukes. But the focus of the talks was fracking. The previous year, Bulgaria had signed a five-year, $68 million deal, granting US oil giant Chevron millions of acres in shale gas concessions. Bulgarians were outraged. Shortly before Clinton arrived, tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets carrying placards that read "Stop fracking with our water" and "Chevron go home." Bulgaria's parliament responded by voting overwhelmingly for a fracking moratorium.
Clinton urged Bulgarian officials to give fracking another chance. According to Borissov, she agreed to help fly in the "best specialists on these new technologies to present the benefits to the Bulgarian people." But resistance only grew. The following month in neighboring Romania, thousands of people gathered to protest another Chevron fracking project, and Romania's parliament began weighing its own shale gas moratorium. Again Clinton intervened, dispatching her special envoy for energy in Eurasia, Richard Morningstar, to push back against the fracking bans. The State Department's lobbying effort culminated in late May 2012, when Morningstar held a series of meetings on fracking with top Bulgarian and Romanian officials. He also touted the technology in an interview on Bulgarian national radio, saying it could lead to a fivefold drop in the price of natural gas. A few weeks later, Romania's parliament voted down its proposed fracking ban and Bulgaria's eased its moratorium.
Hillary Clinton is welcomed to Sofia by Bulgarian Foreign Affairs Minister Nikolay Mladenov, left. US Department of State/flickr
Goldwyn had a long history of promoting drilling overseas—both as a Department of Energy official under Bill Clinton and as a representative of the oil industry. From 2005 to 2009 he directed the US-Libya Business Association, an organization funded primarily by US oil companies—including Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and Marathon—clamoring to tap Libya's abundant supply. Goldwyn lobbied Congress for pro-Libyan policies and even battled legislation that would have allowed families of the Lockerbie bombing victims to sue the Libyan government for its alleged role in the attack.
But environmental groups were barely consulted, while industry played a crucial role. When Goldwyn unveiled the initiative in April 2010, it was at a meeting of the United States Energy Association, a trade organization representing Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and ConocoPhillips, all of which were pursuing fracking overseas. Among their top targets was Poland, which preliminary studies suggested had abundant shale gas. The day after Goldwyn's announcement, the US Embassy in Warsaw helped organize a shale gas conference, underwritten by these same companies (plus the oil field services company Halliburton) and attended by officials from the departments of State and Energy.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/hillary-clinton-fracking-shale-state-department-chevron
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/10/how-hillary-clintons-state-department-sold-fracking-to-the-world
